


Between the Clouds

by secondhandact



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Coma, F/M, Mental Institutions, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Pale-Red Vacillation, and won't you please wake up, that damn trope where everything's a dream in some way or another
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-15
Updated: 2017-06-15
Packaged: 2018-11-14 14:04:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11209581
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/secondhandact/pseuds/secondhandact
Summary: I don't know how to do this without you.Either everything is real or nothing is and her voice is the exception.





	Between the Clouds

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in response to a prompt from a good friend, as a warmup once upon a time. I'd love to do more with it but I really don't know what else to do.
> 
> I really love it, even if it is one of the most common tropes ever and it's overdone and overplayed. I don't even care. It was fun to do.
> 
> Enjoy.

He looks so cold.

It’s the first thing you think when you see his body, tucked beneath one of the blankets you’d knitted for him (On A Whim, and only Because You Wanted To). He looks _cold,_ which is a strange thing to say about your little hot-blooded moirail. Cold. And small.

And so very, very still.

You didn’t spend a lot of time there. You were in the middle of a _rebellion,_ and without Karkat, that meant Someone had to step into the role of Leader. If it wasn’t you, it’d end up being Vriska, or Terezi, or someone Even Worse. Not that you questioned their value, of course! But their ability to focus a Fight wasn’t something that you had much faith in.

But still....

In the moments you could, you stole away to the hiveblock he’d been sequestered to, and knelt beside the recuperacoon he was sequestered in, ignoring the tubes of sopor fitted into his nose and funneling out of his mouth. You groped for his hand in the healing goop and curled your fronds around it, clinging to him, and trying to ignore how cold the flesh was of your warm-blooded little mutant, your shouty leader, your palemate and, maybe, somenight, more than that and _Please, Won’t You Wake Up, Open Your Ganderbulbs And Tell Me That You Hear Me, I Need You To Wake Up Because I Cannot Do This Without You._

When they’d found him they’d said he was lucky to be alive. That your moirail (so cold, so still, so _quiet_ ) shouldn’t even be breathing. That his bloodpusher should have given out. 

The sopor had encouraged healing, and now he looked whole again, but he continued to sleep. His chest rose and fell, and he did not wake.

You’d heard Vriska talking about _martyrs_ and _rallies trolls to the cause_ and after you’d given her a Stern Talking To you hadn’t heard anything else about it. 

His eyeflaps never flutter. His breathing remains unchanged.

Outside, there’s a war raging, and your Knight sleeps on.

* * *

You hear her voice, between the clouds and in the light of the stars.

It’s a weird thing to say, but you know it’s a weird thing to say. They’ve been telling you that it’s a weird thing to say since the first time you’d said it. They can’t stop you thinking it, though. They can’t stop you looking out at the stars.

She has grey skin and angled horns and there’s tears that match the color of her eyes when they run down her cheeks, and she whispers, _Please Get Up_ and you _always_ bolt awake, finding yourself - as always - strapped to your bed and struggling for breath in a place that’s felt alien to you since the first time you opened your eyes in it.

Not just the facility. The whole world. All of it. All of it feels alien and fucking _wrong,_ and if they’d just leave you alone you’d be able to figure it the fuck _out._ But the meds they gave you (forced down your throat) make your dreams fuzzy, make the world loud and downright fucking _aggravating_ and you wish you could vomit back up every pill you’ve ever swallowed and shove it up your doctor’s waste-chute, make him fucking choke. 

You wish you’d never said anything. If you’d kept your fucking mouth shut, you could have been just another guy wandering the streets, trying to make a living in today’s weird-as-fuck backwards-ass society. Maybe you’d still be homeless, but you’d scrape by. At least, you would be ‘til you figured out how to get to her.

Instead, you’re strapped in a room with padding on the walls and bars on the windows, staring up at a moon that’s far too dull and blinking in sunlight that isn’t bright enough, wondering why your skin isn’t grey and where your horns are and why, _why_ do you think you should have any of those things in the first place?

 _I Can’t Do This Without You,_ the voice beyond the stars whispers, and you wish you could figure out who _you_ are so you could take the pain out of her words.


End file.
